“I ran around with a pole getting into trouble and trying to jump over things,” Barber told The Globe and Mail in July. “I did pretty much whatever you would expect a kid with an imagination to do.”
Starting around the age of five, Barber, who was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but now calls Toronto home, would vault over a creek on his family’s farm.
When the creek became too easy, his father, George, a fellow vaulter, built a barn with a pole vault pit and other gymnastics equipment inside.
Shawn said having the equipment on the farm is one of the reasons for his success.
“Looking back, it was probably the thing that made me such a great athlete today,” he told CBC. The exposure to gymnastics at such a young age and the ability to go out every day and have all that equipment in my backyard.”